E3M2: Slough of Despair (Doom)

E3M2: Slough of Despair is the second map of Inferno in Doom. As can be seen from the map, its plan is based on a human hand. The name may be a reference to "the Slough of Despond", from 's . It was designed by Sandy Petersen and uses the music track "Donna to the Rescue". The par time is 0:45.

Essentials
At the start, keep to the left hand wall and just keep firing at any monster and/or demon that comes your way. If you get outnumbered, simply backtrack to the start and let the monster(s) follow you. Begin firing at the monster(s) until you've defeated them. Keep moving along until you get to the blue key. Then turn around, go straight, and when you're out of the alcove, take two lefts into another one. Walk up to the wall in front of you. Kill the lost souls that were behind the wall (or avoid them), and go into the room they were in. Open the blue door in here, hit the switch, turn around, go right, grab the health and ammo, and get to the exit teleporter.

Secrets

 * 1) In the "thumb" is a small lava pit. Walk over it to lower a nearby wall, revealing a chaingun. (sector 19)
 * 2) Below the little and ring fingers is a rock shaped like an arrow if you look at the automap. Open the wall this arrow is pointing to; inside is a plasma rifle and a medikit. (sector 58)
 * 3) At the end of the middle finger is an arrow on the floor pointing to a switch; flip it to get a soul sphere. (sector 28)

Bugs
Two "hanging leg" decorations (Things 184 and 185) and a "pool of blood and flesh" decoration (Thing 187) have no flags set for any of the difficulty classes, so they do not actually appear in the level.

Upon entering midway into the "index finger" the wall at the opening closes. This wall is supposed to be opened by the switch at the end, but the one time only switch may be triggered before the wall fully shuts. When this happens the player becomes trapped and is unable to complete the level.

There are 4 known anomalies in this level's REJECT table.

Design oddities
Near the second "joint" of the "little finger" (just after the cacodemon trap), a severed leg is hanging from the open sky.

Current Compet-n records
The Compet-n records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on November 22, 2020.

Current DSDA records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 24, 2023.

Player spawns
This level contains five spawn points:
 * 1) facing north-east. (thing 198)
 * 2) facing north. (thing 199)
 * 3) facing north. (thing 200)
 * 4) facing north-east. (thing 201)
 * 5) facing west. (thing 207)

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Trivia

 * "Slough" here is pronounced like "slew", and can refer either to a marshy pit or bog, or a large amount.
 * Of all the home ports of Doom, only the SNES port has this map. This map was removed in the Jaguar, 3DO, GBA, PlayStation, and Saturn editions.